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Feb 2, 2010

IDF and Education

IDF and EducationRabbi Menachem Creditor

The Goldstone Report gets the headlines, but it creates the assumptionthat there is no internal critial moral reflection and evaluation aspart of the established IDF ethos and practice. Additionally, thatthere was only testimony from Palestinians under Hamas 'supervision'seems to go unnoticed as well...

This is not a blanket approval of IDF actions, nor does it change myconviction that Israeli occupation is problematic nor that thereshould be, soon and in our days, a Palestinian state.

It is, more importantly, an affirmation of trust that the IDF doesn'tneed the Goldstone Report to regain its moral standing. I wasreminded of something that I knew but forgot through a media-filledlife: IDF soldiers are taught to never forget the humanity of thePalestinians, and that the public debate that the Goldstone Report isembraced by the very army it criticizes.

The IDF is a moral organization, with a Jewishly-connected anduniversally-grounded ethical education at its core. It is easy toforget this from a distance.